Sofia Vergara The Victim Of Pro-Life Protesters – As Battle With Former Fiancé Over Frozen Embryos Rages On

Sofia Vergara was last night mobbed by pro-life protesters at the premiere of 'Magic Mike XXL'. The 'Modern Family' star was at the LA event to support her current fiancé, Joe Manganiello, who stars in the film.

But rather than having an enjoyable evening out with her partner, she was faced with banners displaying offensive (not to mention intrusive) messages including ‘lives created should be lives protected’ and ‘Sofia: unfreeze your daughters, unfreeze your heart.’

Despite the drama, Sofia Vergara and Joe Manganiello seemed to have a great night. [Rex]

The banners, held by pro-life protesters, were referring to the actress’ ongoing frozen embryo battle, which she’s embroiled in with her former fiancé, Nick Loeb.

If you haven’t been following the high-profile fracas, here are the basics of what’s been going on:

While together, Vergara and Loeb underwent IVF in the hope of starting a family together. Five embryos were made and two survived to viability. The couple implanted one into a friend who planned to act as a surrogate – but it didn’t take. They tried a second time, but that failed too. They opted for another round of IVF and two more embryos were made, but before those were used the couple spit leaving the two remaining embryos that the couple are now at such odds over.

They ended things in May 2014 and have been fighting in court since last August – with Loeb hoping to prevent Vergara from ever destroying the embryos.

Sofia's fans are joking that the protesters were paid by Loeb. [Rex]

It's not known if Sofia spotted the banners - but they were hard to miss. [Rex]

Loeb wants to become a father and to implant the remaining two frozen embryos in a surrogate, but Vergara doesn’t want that to happen.

And as the co-creator of the embryos, many would agree that she has a say in whether they’re ‘brought to life’ or not.

After all, it takes two consenting adults to make a child – and surely that school of thought should apply in this (albeit unusual) case, too? Besides, bringing a child, or two, into the world under circumstances like these surely wouldn’t be healthy.

Sofia Vergara and Nick Loeb in happy times. [Rex]

The messy case has caused a huge amount of public debate, with pro-life advocates condemning Vergara for even considering destroying the embryos. But on the flip side, it’s simply not fair to force Sofia to mother children with Nick, when she’s said she doesn’t want to. Of course, things would have been different if the IVF had been successful while they were still a couple – but it didn’t.

"I've been working very hard for 20 years to get to this point where I am, enjoying my movie,” said Vergara previously. “I promote all my movies, all my work, but I don't like promoting my private life..."I don't want to allow this person to take more advantage of my career and try to promote himself and get press for this."

The couple didn't let the protesters get to them. [Instagram/Sofia Vergara]

Vergara has been pretty vocal in her thinking that Loeb is using the lawsuit to boost his own profile, but he claims to only be interested in the welfare of the embryos, which he reportedly believes are his ‘daughters’. It’s not clear how he knows that they’re female embryos – possibly the couple used gender selection in the IVF process to ensure that they had a girl. Like Kim Kardashian and Kanye West are rumoured to have done.

The situation is made all the more difficult by the fact that Vergara, 42, already has a 23-year-old son. While Loeb, 39, doesn’t yet have any children and is keen to become a father. But using embryos from a broken relationship arguably isn’t the right way to go about starting a family.

The actress says she won’t rule out children with Manganiello, who she became engaged to after a whirlwind five month romance. At 38 years old, Manganiello isn’t yet a father and Vergara says she’s happy to give him a child – but admits she’ll have to move fast as she doesn’t want a baby at 50.

Do you think Vergara’s within her rights to have the embryos destroyed? Tweet us your opinion at @YLifestyleUK.